Techno-emotional cuisine and its presentation

Posted on 19 March, 2018

Today we turn what were previously no more than routine, domestic actions into unique experiences. In a world where eating, at least for most of us, is no longer a challenge, techno-emotional cuisine aims at and succeeds in surprising us. Apart from the taste and nutritional value, but without neglecting either of them.

Techno-emotional cuisine: cooking, technique, technology and emotion

These are the four components of the avant-garde haute cuisine known as techno-emotional cuisine. When discussing it, we shouldn’t forget that it draws on classical home cooking and tradition, and while respecting fresh, natural ingredients, one of the greatest merits of this type of cuisine is its pursuit of new developments in the kitchen equivalent to those occurring in health and communications.

In this sense, the application of new cooking techniques and dedicated technology has generated unpronounceable names such as spherification. Or concepts that have become clichés, such as deconstruction. However, the fact is that new flavours can be extracted from food thanks to these new techniques. Or, at least, more intense flavours, which are isolated and therefore manageable and combinable, with results that can be calculated.

We now come to the component that turns techno-emotional cuisine into what it is: emotion. Because the cooks no longer feed us: instead they arouse emotions. For this reason, eating in one of these restaurants is an experience similar to the contemplation of a work of art. The dishes produced by techno-emotional cuisine use our senses to stir us up. As well as appealing to the palate, they appeal to the eye and sense of smell. The fact of de-contextualizing the dishes, in each case offering an impression that we are unable to link to the dish itself, also has an influence on our way of perceiving them and therefore on our emotions.

The presentation of techno-emotional cuisine

A play performed in an empty space does not have the same impact as at an appropriate venue. The boxes, the audience, the curtains, the lighting. All this is part of the theatrical experience. In the same way, techno-emotional cuisine uses colours and names. Through these, it makes the heads of the diners resonate with flavours that, however, they will not encounter when they try the dishes. Surprise is perhaps the first emotion that avant-garde chefs take advantage of in order to make way for all those that come later.

Once surprised, once we accept this is a game where nothing is what it seems, techno-emotional cuisine gets the go-ahead to make us feel, make us remember, and arouse in us, in short, those emotions without which we would only be dealing with processed foods presented in a whimsically complicated way. But there is nothing whimsical about this evolution of cooking as an art form. Just as the sensory facilities of modern art museums encourage us to interact with their works, the new cuisine invites us to enjoy food with all the senses.

As experts in sensory product analysis, at Sensory Value we are very aware of the value of this culinary evolution. And we recommend exploring it with an equally appreciative palate and mind.